


From Ashes

by Last of the War Boys (MintSharpie)



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Birth, Childbirth, F/F, Family, Femslash, Fluff, Implied Nuxable, Love, everybody lives au, saffic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-26
Updated: 2015-06-26
Packaged: 2018-04-06 07:09:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4212612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MintSharpie/pseuds/Last%20of%20the%20War%20Boys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The days of Immortan Joe are over, and a new life has begun.</p>
            </blockquote>





	From Ashes

Seeds only take root in good earth, and there wasn’t much of that. Bringing life to the wasteland was a daunting task, but Dag faced it with a fierce determination almost comparable to Furiosa’s. Cheedo, never far from her side, worked just as hard to coax an oasis from the desert. Plentiful water helped a lot, but alone it did nothing to create soil out of sand. For that, they needed fertilizer. And in a roundabout, gruesome way, they had Joe to thank for their supply.

Moving the former slaves to a new scrap-metal village revealed the horror of the slums: bodies, excrement, and namelessly awful waste that Toast knew was semi-solid gold. With a meat grinder and liberal application of water, she and Splendid soon had enough nitrogen-rich sludge to plow several good-sized fields.

Until the rot took hold, though, they could not sow. Instead they dove into the books Joe had collected, helped along by an old woman from the Bullet Farm who taught them how to read. The books showed them ways to help their endeavor succeed: irrigation, greenhouses, which crops to plant together. By the time Capable, Toast, Nux, and many eager ex-war pups had finished building it all, the soil was ready. Dag reverently placed one of each seed, and let them be.

“It’ll be fine,” Cheedo soothed her for the third time that night. “You did a good job.”

“But what if they don’t take?” Dag asked, shifting restlessly again. “What if it was all for nothing? What if – ”

“Hush,” Cheedo said firmly, and drew her partner close. “If something goes wrong, we’ll just make it right. Let it go. Sleep.”

Dag, trapped in her lover’s embrace, couldn’t roll over again. The position rapidly grew painful as her swollen belly pressed against the bed, and the comfort of Cheedo’s soft breasts supporting her head wasn’t enough to counteract it. She sighed.

“Fine. Just let me get on my back?”

They carefully rearranged themselves until Dag was as comfortable as it was possible to be while heavily pregnant. Cheedo placed a gentle hand over her stomach.

“Worrying isn’t good for you, either,” she said quietly, fingers ghosting across the taut skin. “Not good for whoever’s in there.”

Dag breathed a shallow, humorless laugh. “Warlord Junior? I really don’t care.”

“You should. It’s our child, now. It won’t be like him.”

There was a moment of sudden stillness, as though the very stones around them had stopped to listen. Dag slowly turned her head.

“Ours?” she whispered, eyes oddly wet. Cheedo leaned in to kiss her on the nose.

“Ours,” she confirmed with a smile. “You know I’ll be there for you.”

Dag couldn’t speak. Instead she raised her chin and kissed her lover, slow and sweet, as though they had all the time in the world.

Eighteen days later the first faint green tendrils were poking out of the soil. The boy who discovered them ran all the way to the Citadel’s upper levels to tell Dag, who got to her feet as fast as she could and followed him back to the fields. Her friends trailed after them, trying to convince her to go back to bed. She would not be deterred.

“They’re growing!” she cried as she fell to her knees in the stinking dirt. “The corn, and the beans, and the squash, and – _aaaahh_!”

She doubled over in pain, heaving, wrapping her arms protectively around her stomach. Cheedo rushed forward.

“Dag!”

“It’s coming,” Dag gasped, and groaned miserably. “The baby’s coming!”

The whole gang of them immediately leaped into action. Capable and Nux - though a bit unsteady on his new mechanical leg - helped their friend stand, and half-carried her back towards her quarters. Toast and Splendid ran ahead to prepare, gathering clean rags and heating water infused with soothing herbs. They sent one young boy to fetch the Mothers and another to tell Furiosa, who arrived just in time to aid Dag in her heroic trip up the stairs. A trail of wetness dripped down her legs and slicked the stone behind them.

The birth was a long and painful one. Dag strained and cursed the world for hours, clutching Cheedo’s hand like it was the only thing keeping her on earth. The women gathered around, providing what comfort they could; Nux huddled awkwardly in a corner, watching with horrified fascination and skin even paler than usual.

“Almost there, love, just a little more,” Toast said encouragingly from between Dag’s legs. “One big push, come on, you can do it…”

And with a final victorious battle cry, she did. Her exhausted body went limp as the newborn’s wails pierced the air; Valkyrie and Toast rushed to bundle the tiny scrap of humanity in a blanket and clean the new mother off. Furiosa had the honor of cutting the cord, and a few messy moments later, Cheedo presented Dag with her child.

“It’s a girl.”

She watched her lover take their daughter in her arms. Dag still trembled, but her eyes shone and her face glowed like the desert at sunrise. Even her flaxen hair gleamed, bright silver against the ruddy tear-washed gold of her cheeks. Cheedo sank to her knees by the bed and squeezed Dag’s shoulder tight, fighting back tears. She was just as enraptured with their child as her partner, and only vaguely registered the quiet congratulations of their friends.

Furiosa, trying and failing to look stern, herded everyone out so the new family could have some alone time. When the last of Nux’s nauseated questions to Capable faded away, so too did the infant’s panicked cries. She snuggled down closer to her mother, calmer now that there wasn’t such a crush of people around. The two women watched her for a long while, adrenaline and ecstasy draining from the air until only a calm, profound happiness remained. Cheedo hesitantly reached out, and at Dag’s subtle permission laid delicate fingers on the child's tiny back. She felt a hot lump in her throat, a joy so powerful she could hardly breathe. She ached with it, and nearly missed the most important word of her life.

“Phoenix,” Dag whispered, beaming at her newborn's face. “Let’s call her Phoenix.”

 


End file.
